Microsoft can eat my fat cock

[A Black Falcon]

That is, they have a million places for icons for no decent reason. There's the task bar, quick bar, action bar, start menu, desktop, and task manager, which ALL have the exact same function. There's no legitimate reason I can see to have so many different systems for placing icons. I mean, what is the point, really?

Every one of those things is different and has a good reason for being there... the taskbar shows what is running, your desktop is for whatever you want to put there (I keep it minimal, just the three or four required icons), the task manager (the control-alt-del window you mean?) shows what's running and lets you kill it, including 'hidden' things that don't show up elsewhere, the start menu is the main program manager, and the quickbar is for a few quicklinks for programs you use more often (I've got Winamp, Mozilla, My Computer, and Realplayer in the four quicklaunch buttons (placed next to the toolbar/clock), very handy)...

As for your idea, all I can say is that I still like Tabworks, though I use it less than I used to (the quicklaunch buttons have been helpful, and the only PC game I've played much for most of the past year is Guild Wars, which is easy to launch either from Tabworks or the Start menu...)... not quite the same I know, but it was an attempt to simplify and make easier to use the PC interface while still leaving you full access to real Windows...
http://www.mattsterpiece.com/images/TabW...='TabWorks'
The Win95 version I have has a bunch more stuff.

Again, the Dock is fully-customizable. Most computers you will find in a public lab won't have a customized Dock so you will just find the default icons. You can put anything in the Dock so putting the applications and documents folder in it makes it function just like the Windows Start menu. All of the applications on a Mac are stored in a single applications folder so you don't have to hunt around for things if that folder is in the Dock. It definitely has the ability to become an unfolding folder tree. See the attached screenshot from my computer...

You know that Windows has been trying to have all programs install to the same folder too, since like Windows 98, with the 'Program Files' folder? It almost immediately gets massively cluttered with dozens and dozens of programs... (even if, as I do, you don't install games to that folder but to their own folders)...

As in, how is "all the programs install to one folder" any different from my computer? It'd be like having a version of Windows where the only "program manager" was My Computer, which would be somewhat funny, but utterly unusable, because sorting through the hundreds of non-programs to find the applications every time you want to run them would be a stupidly absurd task... at least in DOS you just need to remember the program name, you don't need to sift through the list every time... not to mention Windows 95+ with the nice, 'when they install programs make a little folder here that just contains a link to the program, the uninstaller, and the readmes' Programs folder in the Start menu... it's easy to use, certainly easier than anything I've seen for Mac, unless you make your own "Start Menu" full of links to programs, but that'd be an irritating task... ("but tabworks is like that"? Nope, Tabworks automatically creates a new tab for each new folder or subfolder added in Program Files. I have the Win95 version. :) A little organization is needed, but not much...)

Unless it autohides all non-program/readme files? Then it'd be just as annoying as Windows with how MS wants to make so much stuff these days hidden... no, I DON'T want my Windows folder hidden and made inaccessible behind a "warning do not modify this folder" message, I DON'T want hidden files everywhere, I want to be able to actually see the things on my harddrive...